The Effect of Word- and Comprehension-Emphasis Instruction on Reading Performance

Three instructional procedures were compared to assess their effects on reading comprehension and word recognition. One approach emphasized comprehension, i.e., students were regularly questioned about the reading content and were not corrected when they made oral reading errors. A second approach consisted of word emphasis, whereby subjects were corrected for all reading errors and received error-word drills each day. They were not questioned about the content of their reading selection. The third approach combined aspects of the other two, including error-word corrections and drill along with comprehension questions. No differences were found among treatment effects on comprehension and oral reading; however, on an isolated word-recognition measure the approaches which included error-word drill produced higher scores.